[Closed] Science question from Mrs MTG. Hair, water and chlorine.

You have to shower before you swim ergo hair is wet- you always need to wash your hair afterwards

She is wrong

Science eh

Actually you may absorb less i have no control there do i DOH

Bad science

However, as people only become hairdressers because they failed their exams at school, I don't think they are qualified to comment.

I thought that was bus mechanics.

Nah, you've got to attend an exam to fail it 😉

I thought that was bus mechanics.

I though it was people that pushed bits of wood together on a surface that was already flat...

I would imagine that as the hair would already be wet/loaded with water then her hair would not soak up pure chlorinated water (at the same rate as if it was dry), however the longer in the pool the more her hair would soak/fill with the chlorinated stuff however it would take pure scientific tests to establish the rate of exchange HTH

I though it was people that pushed bits of wood together on a surface that was already flat...

Backgammonists?
Chessists?

Buy her a swimming hat then she won't meet to worry about it so much 😉

Best suggestion so far from neal.

Or just shave it. (Just the head)

Or just shave it. (Just the head)

Are you suggesting it's only the hair on her head which will absorb chlorinated water?

I think it's you that's making suggestions aracer 😛

Sounds like you're comparing the properties of a homogeneous solution - chlorinated water, with a heterogeneous suspension - muddy water. Apples and oranges lad.
Your missus may not be speaking complete bollox, however. There may be a difference between the reaction of dry hair with chlorinated water, and that of wet hair. If there is, then it is not impossible for it to be a good idea to pre-wet your hair prior to swimming. Maybe.

Nah, you've got to attend an exam to fail it

Garry, yes, we did go on to the subject of solution and suspension.
I likened it to soaking a paint brush, then dipping it in a pot of water colour paint.
If you just dip it in then yes, it probably will absorb less paint than a dry brush.
If you swirl the brush around for fifty lengths of a swimming pool, it won't make any difference.

Anyway, this morning Mrs MTG was telling me about a film she watched last night...
"The jews were being herded like sheep into cattle trucks"
"Sheep get herded into sheep trucks. It's cattle that get herded into cattle trucks"
"Sheep are cattle, aren't they ?"

A remarkably astute observation.
I left school at 14 and have no academic qualifications whatsoever

*note to self* avoid sitting next to door on buses.

Graham,do you ever wonder.....?

I started to swim daily and it was mentioned my blond hair was getting a green tinge. I was told by a hair dresser it was from chlorine and to soak it first. I tried, made no difference so I bought a swimming cap. The hairdresser also told me to try rubbing tomato ketchup in my hair to 'deactivate' the chlorine... Didn't fancy that in the gym showers, sounds like BS, and prevention is better than cure so on with the swim cap.

A remarkably astute observation.

My old man's a bus mechanic, when I was a kid I asked him if he became a bus mechanic by failing his exams...you can guess what his answer was!

Tomato ketchup is quite acidic, which *might* neutralise the chlorine but there are shampoos, which claim to do the same with less mess.

Swimming pool water is just very very dilute bleach.

That said, isn't there a new kind of pool technology now, which reduces the chlorine level quite a lot?

Tell her to rub some conditioner through her hair before she swims, it is meant to help.

Some pools are treated with ultra violet that reduces the amount of chlorine needed.

If you are swimming i.e moving through the water head first, the water from the shower will be replaced/diluted from that in the pool in a matter on seconds/minutes. Water from the shower will not have a greater affinity for someones hair over chlorinated water.

Duncan Goodhew didnt have this problem!!!

Its an interesting question.

If an individual strand of hair does absorb water than this sounds plausable. But it partly depends on how fast hair absorbs water.

If the an individual hair is saturated on entry to the Pool then Chlorine would have to diffuse in which might be slower than theoriginal absorbtion.

This the nearest i can get to any real relevant science from the web

http://ppoa.org/?page_id=418

"Green hair in blondes is caused by too much chlorine.
Not at all. Green hair is caused by copper in the water – but not right away during a swim… Copper must precipitate as a green salt during a high-pH shampoo, usually long after the pool water has dried in the hair. Two errors, then: The operator had allowed copper (pipes, heater, impeller) to be dissolved by his excessively aggressive water. No problem yet – crystal clear water still. Error two is the swimmer’s fault; she or he didn’t shower (rinse) or even towel dry the pool-wet hair. It dried with that half cup of copper-bearing water leaving its contents behind. Then the high pH of a shampoo (pH 9 or higher), hours or days later, caused the precipitation of copper oxide (and maybe some sulfide). Everything from Aspirin to vinegar has been used to reduce the coloration after the fact, but prevention is the much better approach. The so-called swimmer’s shampoo is simply a lower pH product that doesn’t clean as well but keeps the hair below pH 8.3 where all the dissolved solids otherwise begin to fall out of solution. Everybody, by the way, gets green hair under this sequence of events; it just shows up better in bleached blondes."

Hmm if this is a myth then its very widely repeated on the net and I've tried adding the word myth with nothing coming up. If its not true then its a harmless myth

If you're swimming a lot (like 4 days a week) then Boot's do a range of sun, swim, gym shampoos, conditioner and leave in protection which make a difference over normal stuff. Otherwise I just left normal conditioner under my cap and washed with the fancy shampoo.

The other thing is not washing your hair before going in the pool, the oil on it helps keep the chlorine out.

Best solution it to go to a more up-market non-coucil run pool, less kids pissing in the water means less chlorine needed.

Best solution it to go to a more up-market non-coucil run pool, less kids pissing in the water means less chlorine needed.

Actually the council run pool I swim at is UV filtered so only small amounts of chlorine needed.

And don't tell her to rub some conditioner through it before swimming which then gets washed into the pool that everyone else swims in

Swim hats don't keep your hair dry either so not sure how they keep the chlorine off it.

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cider vinegar after swimming restores the ph of hair and skin to more reasonable levels. smells funny tho.

My swim cap doesn't keep my hair dry.